Monaco charity to hold next charity gala event at the new Yacht Club de Monaco

Accademia, the non-profit organisation formed in Monaco in 2006, has unveiled plans for an incredible gala evening, to be held at the brand new Yacht Club de Monaco in October. The glamorous event, supported by the High Patronage of HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco, will be the first major charitable function within the new Foster-designed edifice and looks set to be a spectacular occasion with a very worthy mission.

Over the past eight years, Accademia has managed to pull together Monaco businesses and residents alike to support a number of high profile educational projects in Brazil. La Nuit de l’Elégance on 2nd October, announced recently by Mme Theresa Hsu, the charity’s President, has already started to generate a wave of interest across the Principality with early ticket sales, donations and corporate sponsors.

Aside from being held at Monaco’s hottest new venue, the gala will include a high-quality fashion show showcasing the work of local Monaco designers, Elizabeth Wessel and Carlo Ramello, a live and a silent auction, a tombola filled with amazing goodies and the high-energy, all-girl funk band, "Sisters G."

The evening’s festivities will start with a champagne reception out on the beautiful deck terrace followed by a gourmet dinner in the Ballroom. This year’s auctioneer will be no less than celebrity UK television host Noel Edmonds, and the evening is being supported by a wealth of key international figures including the renowned artist Marcos Marin and Brazilian Formula One driver Felipe Massa.

There are plenty of exciting items to bid for, including a week in the Maldives at the super-luxury Soneva Fushi Resort, two days on a Mangusta 130 Yacht, a painting specially created for Accademia by David Shilling, the shirt and cap worn by F1 driver, Felipe Massa, on the podium in Monza at this year’s Italian Grand Prix, ”Brigitte Bardot" optical Sculpture by Marcos Marin and a one-year membership at the Grace Belgravia Luxury Spa for starters!

The event sold out at the end of June, however one generous donor has offered his table as an auction item, available now to the highest bidder.

Monaco has been philanthropically reaching out towards this Latin American counterpart for almost a decade now through Padre Valdir Formentini from the Eglise Saint Charles de Monaco. Although a local fixture here in the Principality, the Catholic priest originated from the small Santa Isabel commune on the outskirts of Porto Alegre and has over the years never forgotten his roots. Regular trips allowed him to personally give back to his community, but in 2006 he opened up to fellow local Linda Hsu about his concerns. Santa Isabel, though beautiful, is heavily impoverished, drug-stricken, and a dangerous area for children. The majority of the children do go to school but are left to fend for themselves on the streets whilst their parents work, and find themselves unattended for hours both before and after school. It is during these unsupervised hours where the children in Santa Isabel are at their most vulnerable and fall prey to violence, murder, and recruiting into drug cartels. Motivated by a joint desire to stop the crisis at hand, Linda and her friends joined forces with Padre Valdir to create Association Accademia: Monaco’s very own non-profit, 100% volunteer-based charitable organization.

What started out as a wish to build the CEASI center where children could be fed, sheltered, and supervised by adults quickly became a reality by 2007, and grew from there. “We had wanted to get these children off the streets and onto better life paths,” stresses the Shanghai born but Sao Paulo raised co-founder Linda Hsu, “ so once we had the CEASI infrastructure in place we asked ourselves “Why stop here? Why not offer them educational programming as well?” Eight years onwards, AssociationAccademia has successfully fundraised for and extended their original center, built an extension to the existing parish primary school, sport facilities, computer classrooms, a government-supported primary tutorial school and programming that provides teenagers with practical skills to enter the work force. So far the lives of over 2,000 children have been changed by their educational and extra-curricular programs, and they hope to keep on expanding.